I have been playing the BattleTech Beta way too much and not even sleeping enough before going to work so have gotten nothing much done this past week...just worked on the BWD and added the Antenna on the back.
Need to do the following:

Add the laser mounts on the arms
Stretch all the upperbody textures and change them to match a Wolverine colour scheme of Blue and Gold (as best I can anyways)
Scale the legs to make them larger
Add the custom feet WTBs
Replace all the lower LODs in the BWD to stop the weird clipping issue
Fix all the broken faces in the model
Adjust the mek settings (weapons and such) and hardpoints
Replace all Firemoth menu graphics and in-game cockpit (mind you the cockpit views are somewhat similar so might not even touch it)
And make a proper custom installer for a single mech release (might be DOS version only - completely unsure what the other versions would do - I'm guessing it should still work if I do it right?) for anyone interested in trying The Pulverizer out.

Scratch that I added the gun when I compared BWDs and looked at the DTBL tag and noticed a byte that seem to indicate the maximum number objects allowed in a REPR section.

So gotta add more to it in order to add more objects to the mech. Now I gotta fix all the stuff I ripped out of the BWD and go forward but I really need to make a tool that will convert the files with a click and possibly a BWD maker as well to speed this up.

Basically this one mech is the learning curve and once I get it sorted THEN I should be able to pump out the other planned mechs much easier. Will start posting more pics hopefully in a few days.

Stinger wrote:I know others really aren't on these forums, but your work is awesome. This is really cool...

Thanks man - appreciate it.

Looked at the DTBL tag again and it seems in the middle of the 27 byte range is the total maximum OBJs allowed in any of the REPR containter (normally the highest level LOD that is the first one listed) and the next byte is the total number of OBJs in the entire BWD

So slowly making progress here.

EDIT - finally added the guns to the arms which is a nice thing because it means I can add as many pieces as I want to my mech and with some forethought I can spread them among the various lower LODS of all the mechs listed ingame to make a super detailed version of any mech if done right.

Going to overhaul my BWD and touch up some of the models and do the textures once I get the feet added and legs adjusted then post up some pics.

Still working on the legs and trying to get them to scale before moving onto the feet....have the night off tonight so might take a nap and work on the feet and possibly the textures. Want to take some new pics of this thing soon.

EDIT - added some pics to at least show that I added the guns on the arms (needs tweaking) and the antenna in the back and I notice the window is really picking up on the pallette well.

The 3D models will need some overhauling due to all the missing/invisible faces ingame...not a biggie...might be albe to reduce the poly count some more.

Been redoing all the models - finished the guns and lower arms since they were glitchy and will move the launcher to the correct side after fixing that as well.
Then tweak the feet and finally get the colouring done...blue/gun metal blue with hints of gold or beige whatever works?

EDIT - fixed the launcher and lower arm issues with the models...had to use another slot for the guns. Still some clipping on the guns it seems but they are rendering stable now. Trying to re-position them took me 45 mins it seems. The entire engine world coordinate system is completely inverted.

To give one an idea this is how it goes:

1. I model in my modelling program (but the models are 90 degrees rotated and all face normals are inverted to what the game engine needs) and flip the normals before exporting to OBJ format.

2. Go into MechVM - choose file and select the MW2.PRJ and go into Polys and choose a slot - right click on it and choose Replace with OBJ and choose the OBJ you need converted (now it doesnt replace anything at this point it just takes your selected OBJ and converts it over to WTB format)

3. A new WTB is now created in the folder with the original OBJ you previously selected with a same name but new WTB extension tagged on. So I now use Quota's WTBChecksum to convert the file making sure I use Dos prompt (CMD) and go to folder with the java app and model altogether and enter the following java -jar wtbchecksum.jar filename.wtb -write it will show a message with a Matching checksum that equals No. Just enter the same command again (or hold the right arrow key and it will populate the last command typed in the Dos prompt) and hit enter and you will now get a message that the WTB checksum is a match with a Yes. Now the WTB is in legal proper format otherwise if you try to use it without doing this step - the model will be invisible and not display ingame because the checksum will not match. [You will need to install Java 5/6 to make this converter work]

4. go back and launch the MechVM (open up the MW2.PRJ) and choose the WTB. Now you must be careful you can not put a model that is a larger filesize than the original slot can take. (right click and go into properties to confirm your WTB's byte size) then select the slot - right click on it and choose Replace with (not replace with OBJ) and choose your legal WTB and that is it.

5. Take a BWD file (most likely one you exported in MechVM) and edit it in a Hex Editor (I use XVI32 - sure there are better ones out there) and after saving the adjustments go into MechVM (MW2.PRJ) and go into BWDs - select the BWD you are planning to modify and right click and replace with and that is that.

6. If the placement of your part is not lining up ingame then that is where the fun starts and you have to keep tweaking the BWD file and 're-import' it back into the MW2.PRJ each time and launch the game again to see if its better or worse.

Slow going...real life and yada yada so I did a tiny neat thing and reused the same part so the two front toes is the same single front toe just duplicated and moved...and I deleted one of the extra toes in back to give it the proper look for the Pulverizer.

I will move onto texturing and keep it the default scheme since the game is not too accomodating with the colour schemes - the problem is if I give one mech a custom colour scheme then every game with that mech will have it...it's all or nothing which really doesn't make sense. I haven't looked into variants but for now will just keep it default and stretch them to match the entire look. Will add the finer detailing to the guns and such.

Here is my obligatory pic spam.

I still have a nagging mesh that does a tiny graphic glitch and some of the guns faces get clipped as well...really tiny stuff only noticed when real up close. Also I need to reshuffle my gun placement inside the BWD - since I just dropped them at the end they are not tied to the proper node so when the arm blows up the gun is still there floating in space...need to attach it to the arm nodes and it should be alright.

Stuck on texturing here (trying to add a vent texture here)...I am re-reading the files and trying to figure out if there's an easy way not to mess with the WLD files to get what I want.
I am at a point now I will have to start making some of my own tools. I will be a few weeks...but I will start of simple like making my own WTB checksum patcher tool that doesn't require Java and then go from there if it doesn't set me back too much. Love to have a proper WTB, BWD editor tool.

EDIT - OK after a couple of hours of reading and such...found the list in the MW2MAP1.BWD so now I just need to find the textures I need and apply them and I should be good.

Slowly getting there...sorta getting lazy and burning out a bit. Did the Main body textures and stretched them (literally copying textels off of a Mad Dog BWD) then added the grill using the list in the BWD and fixed the textels and it worked. The mech looks a lot clearer now just need to do the arms and tweak the attenae because the other texture I can use is not listed. I could manually add it but then that would involve yet another modified file - I wish to keep any form of installation as simple as possible - the less moving parts the better.

Actually by maybe not stretching the shoulders it might highlight the arms and main body better...with the textures being tighter it makes the overall look a tad darker. So will even leave the hips as is since it breaks up the monotony and it is still clear to see as is.